The Cardiac Follies
by Marguerite1
Summary: Set during the runup to the Santos/Vinick campaign of West Wing and Season 2 of House. A member of Russell's committee ends up at Princeton-Plainsboro, accompanied by a member of Santos', so of course House is on the case.


Title: The Cardiac Follies

Author: Marguerite

Classification: West Wing/House, M.D. crossover

Rating: PG for very mild language

Spoilers: Pretty much anything from either show up to June, 2005.

...

June, 2005

...

Patients lie.

I tell people that all the time, and if I get lucky before I shuffle off this mortal coil, someone will eventually believe me. Right there, that's my raison d'être. What a sad, miserable bastard I am.

The cold rain is making my whole body ache, not just my leg, so I make a point of limping more piteously than usual as I follow Cuddy to the exam room. She has on a skirt that could tempt a lesser man, yet I remain unmoved. Mostly because I'm walking behind her and already have a nice view.

I have an even nicer view of the young woman perched on the exam table. Slightly built, blonde, blue-eyed, early 30s, and from the clarity of her skin I can tell she has taken good care of herself. She's trying very hard not to massage her thigh, which she keeps covered with as much of the hospital gown as she can manage. I only notice it because I'm looking for a wedding or engagement ring. She has neither.

What she does have is one jumpy SOB standing next to the exam table. He's not wearing a ring, either. Medium height, slim bordering on too thin, very bad case of male pattern baldness that's not being helped by how often he tugs at the remaining tufts of brown hair.

"You're Dr. House?" asks the blonde in a Midwestern accent that she tries to cover up. It's not working too well today, probably because of whatever brought her to the clinic.

"That would be me. Who would be you?"

"She's Donnatella Moss," says the jumpy SOB.

"I see - she can only ask questions, not answer them. What an interesting symptom." I shoot my best death-glare at Jumpy, who gives me a pretty impressive one in return. "Donnatella Moss, what leg injury brings you to

our fair clinic this afternoon?"

"It's Donna, actually. And I don't have a leg injury."

Someone tried to bring her up right because she's looking me right in the eye, instead of right in the leg, while she talks about a leg injury. That, plus the way she's actually listening to me, earns her some points even though I know she's still holding out on me.

"Then, did you spill something on yourself?" I continue, glancing down at her hands and then back up at her large, frightened eyes. "I was only asking because rubbing your leg usually indicates that your leg hurts."

She doesn't blush. She goes pale. Very, very pale.

Jumpy goes one shade lighter than she does.

NOW, I'm interested.

"Dr. Cuddy, would you please page Dr. Chase?"

"What does he do?" Jumpy asks while Cuddy reaches for the phone.

"He's an intensivist. He'll find out what's going on before you explode." I wasn't directing my comments to Donna but rather to Jumpy himself. "Get into a chair."

Sure enough, the guy ends up tumbling to the floor with both hands over his chest, pressing hard against whatever's hurting. Donna leaps up from the exam table and I can see long surgical scars on her thigh. Pretty recent. "Josh!" she cries - screams, more accurately.

Cuddy's down on the floor next to him, checking his pulse. "Rapid heartbeat, skin's clammy. Any history of heart troubles?" She loosens his tie and unbuttons his shirt. Impressive scars there. Older. "Lungs?"

"And an old gunshot wound," I add, pointing out the puckered scar. Who the hell are these people?

Jumpy, who I now must refer to as Josh, nods his head. He looks past Cuddy to Donna and takes her hand. "I'm sorry...didn't mean to...make it...about me..."

Then he passes out cold.

...

"It's not a heart attack," Chase declares, scratching that possibility off of the clear board in the conference room.

His keen grasp of the obvious never ceases to amaze me.

"Angina, then? Did he seem stressed?" Foreman asks, sounding almost disinterested.

Sometimes, I can not believe these people. "Rapid heartbeat, chest pain, and fingernails that have turned white from clenching his fists so hard? Yes, it might have been a little bit of stress."

Before Foreman and Chase can react, Cameron makes her entrance and grabs Josh's admitting report from the table. "I need his last name before I go get a complete history." She studies the top sheet, frowning. "Joshua Lyman. I've heard that name."

Leaving her to her reminiscences, I turn back to Chase. "You may have noticed the scars on his chest?" I inquire.

"He's obviously had some sort of heart or lung surgery - pretty rushed, from the looks of it." Chase circles the word "surgery" on the board. "Cameron, get as much detail as possible. We'll need his records from wherever this happened."

"Georgetown, I'll bet." Cameron's eyes widen. "I know where I've heard of him - he's the guy who got shot."

Another penetrating diagnosis. "We had that worked out from the rather large entry wound scar on his chest," I tell her.

She gives me her most exasperated look in return. "I mean, the guy who was shot along with the President. In Virginia, by those guys who were trying to kill the daughter's boyfriend."

"When was that?" Foreman asks. A high-profile shooting - now he's interested. Someday I need to talk to him about his priorities.

"Spring of...2000? Seriously, it was all over the news. Lyman was pretty high up in the White House, a fairly important guy. He almost didn't make it."

Chase writes "emergency, serious" next to the word "surgery." The marker squeaks. "I'll get someone to fax in his records. What was the surgery for?"

She's stumped, staring at the wall as if watching an imaginary television broadcast. "Lung, they said...wait, maybe it was an artery..."

"You remember his name but not the injury?" Foreman asks, eyebrows raised.

"At least I remember his name!" Cameron shoots back. Good for her. "Honestly, you guys don't remember the President getting shot?"

"I remember that part." Foreman's a little snippy right now.

"You seriously expect me to believe that no one in this room ever heard the name Joshua Lyman mentioned in the maybe thousands of reports about the assassination attempt?"

Foreman shrugs. "I was busy in med school."

Chase steps in. "I was busy in med school, too. In Australia."

They're looking at me. I was busy trying to keep what I knew to myself. But that's another conversation. "I think we should get busy now. Someone get hold of Josh's records - and go talk to Donna, the original patient."

"She's still with him. She won't let herself be checked in until she's sure he's stable" Chase warns. "You'll have to pry her away from Josh with a crowbar."

"We don't need a crowbar. We have Cameron."

She rolls her eyes at me. "And what do I use as bait?"

"Tell her you're taking her for a pedicure or something, whatever girls do. I don't care. Get her out of that room and see if her vitals improve or deteriorate."

Cameron grumbles at me on her way out. I'm pretty sure the word "pig" is involved.

"You think this is environmental?" Foreman asks.

I stand up, leaning heavily on my cane. "Depends on what you call 'environment.' Take care of it while I get caught up on my U.S. History, so I won't fail Cameron's next pop quiz."

Foreman and Chase leave to get confirmation for my theory. Chase, head down as he reads and walks at the same time, almost bumps into Cuddy as she makes her way into the office.

Her stride isn't as confident as usual. Something's gotten to her, maybe cowed her a little. "I got a phone call," she says as she sits down and crosses her legs.

"How nice for you."

"Want to know who it's from?"

Not especially, but she really, really wants me to know. I wave a hand toward her and lean back in my chair.

Cuddy takes a deep breath. "Abigail Bartlet."

"A regular, garden-variety Abigail Bartlet, or-"

"The Abigail Bartlet, First Lady of the United States of America, thoracic surgeon."

I know all the variations of Cuddy's expressions. This one's somewhere between panic and star-struck. "Do they want to endow a wing? Because there are worse things than having her sit on the board. Things called Vogler, for instance."

Cuddy shudders. "Don't. If you say his name three times, he might come back." I think she almost believes it. "Anyway, Dr. Bartlet will be visiting us within the next few hours. She's flying in to take a look at...well, I guess both of them."

"She might have some insight on what happened with Josh Lyman's gunshot injury the night of the assassination attempt."

Her eyes widen. "That's where I've heard his name before. Wow, good catch, House."

Okay, I may need to be nice to Cameron for five minutes because she just made me look good in front of the Boss Lady. "I keep up with current events," I say evenly.

Pushed it too far.

"I can't believe I bit down on that. Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads-up. Maybe even talk you into wearing a lab coat."

"Nah." I get up and stretch a little. "She already knows I never wear one."

The nice thing about glass walls is that you can see the face of the person you're walking away from. Damn, that expression on Cuddy's face - it's actually a new one.

...

Bless Cameron's little toes, she's gotten Donna away from Josh and into a private room. Our patient is hooked up to just about every machine in the place. Heart rate's a little fast, nothing severe, O2 levels are fine. Her enormous blue eyes track every move I make. "How's Josh?" she asks.

"Well, he did not have a heart attack. What he did have, we're not really sure of. And I don't so much care." She gasps - I didn't think those eyes could get any larger, but they do - and her mouth turns downward. "You're the sick person in this room, not him, so right now you're at the top of my list."

"Is that good or bad?" Donna asks, and that makes Cameron choke on a half-supressed giggle. "I'm just asking because, well, being on Josh's list? Not a good thing."

It irks me that I want to reassure her, but I do want to reassure her. "Being on my list is a good thing." I turn to Cameron. "Anything new?"

"There's a lot of paperwork being faxed in. Some of it's from Germany."

"A little too much wienerschnitzel?"

"No," Donna says softly. "I was flown to Ramstein Air Force Base. From Israel."

"Funny, you don't look Jewish."

She hiccups rather than laughs, and Cameron is right there with a kleenex for her as the tears start welling up. "I was with a Codel group. That's short for Congressional Delegation. We were in Gaza and there was...an attack. I don't remember anything until I woke up in the hospital at Ramstein."

"Not counting minor injuries like shrapnel cuts,," Cameron puts in, giving Donna time to compose herself, "the big probem was a shattered femur that led to a pulmonary embolism."

"You had quite a time," I tell her.

She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I guess. I really only recall bits and pieces of it."

"Any problems since then?"

"Well, my leg gets a little sore, especially in cold weather, and sometimes my foot will swell up a bit. But overall, I'm pretty good."

Cameron doesn't even wait for me to pass her the ball. "Donna, what about other symptoms?" she asks.

Donna gives her a blank look. Purposefully blank. Her hands clench. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean."

"One would think that someone who's worked in politics as long as you have," I declare, "would be a better liar."

She glares at me. "Wait a minute-"

"Lack of sleep. Nightmares, when you do sleep. Anxiety for no reason you can really figure out. Short temper. Shortness of breath, chest pain. Ring any bells?"

Donna hangs her head. She dabs at her eyes with the kleenex, which she has systematically folded into smaller and smaller squares. "I...I guess so."

"And being around Josh is making it worse?" Cameron asks.

A woman that pretty shouldn't look so miserable. Donna stares down at her hands and makes the kleenex one size smaller. "I don't want it to be...that."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder?" Even the name makes her wince. I pat her on the shoulder before I start to walk away. "Cheer up. I think it may be something even more interesting."

Cameron follows after me, pretty much radiating curiosity from every pore.

...

When the team is assembled in my office - plus Wilson, who's there for no particular reason - I make my big announcement.

"Our patients are getting a second opinion. Or, since there are four of us-"

"Five," says Wilson, not bothering to glance up from his newspaper.

"Four. I'm not counting the oncologist, since there's not any cancer involved."

"Well, there's not an infectious disease, either," Wilson complains, pointing at Cameron as well as he can without looking at her.

"Yeah, but she's prettier than you so she still counts. Anyway, another doctor is coming in to consult with us. Abigail Bartlet."

Foreman almost spits his coffee across the room. "You are kidding me," he says.

"Yeah, you're right, I just wanted to see your reactions."

Foreman glares, Chase snickers, and Cameron is looking around the room as if expecting the First Lady to materialize in the blink of an eye.

Wilson, his attention finally on me instead of the box scores from last night's Red Sox game, raises an eyebrow. "Things getting a little slow at the White House?"

"All I know is what I get from Cuddy." No one's going to bite down on that. "Actually, she's known Donna and Josh for almost a decade and she told Cuddy she'd like to talk to us, maybe give some background."

Foreman gestures with his cup, indicating the stacks of papers in our patients' files. "We need more background?"

"Don't forget," Cameron says in a heinous parody of my inflections, twirling her pencil the way I do my cane, "that patients always lie."

The guys look at me. I shrug to cover my amusement. "Everyone needs a hobby. Hand me Josh's file, will you?" Foreman gets up and hands it to me. I wave it in the air like a banner. "Right now, my hobby is getting lied to by a politician."

Silence.

"Hey," I add as I make my way to the door, "no one ever said hobbies had to be difficult."

...

It's not easy for a man to look supercilious and defiant while wearing a gown that ties at the back of the neck, but Josh manages to make it work. His arms are folded in front of his chest and he scowls up at me. "Hey, Dr. Dracula, just how much of my blood do you really need?"

"Relax, I don't do the bloodletting. I have minions for that." I lean against the wall.

"Who's with Donna?" Josh demands.

"Dr. Chase."

"Which one's he?"

I roll my eyes. "Blond Australian guy? Kept you from breaking your skull?"

"Crap." Josh grimaces. "What is it with her and good-looking guys with accents?"

No way am I taking the bait. At least not in an obvious way. "So, Donna works for you."

"Worked." He spits the word out as if it tastes bad.

"Okay, Donna work-ED for you. She went to Israel and all you got was a t-shirt?"

"She went to Israel and all I got was..." He trails off, staring blankly at the wall. He probably has no idea that he's holding his hand over his chest. "I got to watch them treat her for what killed my father. Then I got to watch her start going somewhere I didn't have the strength to follow. Not again."

"See anyone for that?" I ask casually. Last thing I need is for him to figure out that I'm interested.

"Stanley. Well, two guys named Stanley, but mostly a doctor who works for ATVA. He'd seen me...before. When I was shot. After I got back from seeing Donna in Germany, he called me, you know, a lot. Told me what to look for."

"In her, or in yourself?" Privately, I don't think there is much of a difference, but what the hell.

Josh looks down and folds his hands in his lap, sighing. The arrogant set of his shoulders is replaced by a defeated slump. "When I started to go off, after Rosslyn, she was the first one who knew. I didn't exactly return the favor. I didn't even know when she left to work for Russell."

If held up a giant sign, in neon, saying, "This is what's wrong with me," it couldn't have been any clearer. "Josh, you're not having a heart attack. You're having panic attacks. You're afraid her life will spin out of control, the way yours did."

"I did a lot of crazy things," Josh mumbles. "I hurt her. I hurt a lot of people, I...scared them." His long fingers are trembling as he traces the pattern on the blanket. "I yelled at the President."

"I yell at him all the time. Well, I do it to the television, but same difference."

"I did it in the Oval Office."

He's not just ashamed. He's afraid. "Could've been worse. You could've thrown up on his shoes."

Josh looks at me, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You trying to humor me, get me to say something revealing?"

"Please, no." I lean backward. It releases the pressure on my leg and a little of the tension in the room. "I mean, good for you for telling truth to power."

"It wasn't the truth they objected to - it was more the decibel level."

"And the way you got the subject in your teeth and wouldn't let go?"

"That's not the crazy, Doctor, that's just me doing my job."

That, I can understand. "You should tell that to Cuddy. Never mind," I continue, holding up my hand to keep him from wading into the situation further. "Clean yourself up and get dressed. Dr. Bartlet's going to be here before long and you shouldn't look like a plucked chicken when she gets here."

As I walk away, I can hear Josh thumping his head against the headboard.

Abigail Bartlet has made me want to do that more than once.

...

Chase and Cameron are arguing when I get back to the office. Something about how Cameron wouldn't give up her license, no way, not over a man, not even the President of the United States. Chase, who is holding up his end of the argument by holding the coffeepot too high for Cameron to reach - a stupid move, because even I won't withhold coffee from her when she gets that look in her eyes - and saying that Dr. Bartlet was lucky to have gotten off as easily as she did.

"I don't know that I'd have this conversation right now," I warn as I slide into my chair. They look at me, puzzled, and I direct their attention to the dozen or so dark-suited men who have just materialized in the hallway. "Where there's Secret Service, there's a Bartlet."

Abigail Bartlet walks in on cue. She's in a dark blue pantsuit, businesslike but not intimidating, and she actually looks tired and worried. Chase puts the coffeepot down without spilling anything. Cameron looks shellshocked. I remain in my chair.

"Please, don't get up," Dr. Bartlet says in a voice dripping with polite sarcasm. That's quite a skill.

She hasn't seen me in over ten years, and her eyes widen a bit when I get up, balancing with my cane. "Hurt yourself skiing?" Cameron gasps but doesn't jump into the conversation. The sound distracts Dr. Bartlet, who turns toward her then back toward me. "Dr. House, won't you introduce me to your colleagues?"

"Of course. Dr. Abigail Bartlet, this is Dr. Allison Cameron and Dr. Robert Chase. They work for me."

Cameron remembers her manners and steps forward. I'm surprised she doesn't curtsy. "It's an honor to meet you, ma'am," she says as she shakes hands with the First Lady.

"I'm delighted. And you, Dr. Chase," she adds, as Chase pulls himself together.

"Pleasure to meet you." It might be my imagination, but the accent sounds thicker than normal.

"Oh, my." Dr. Bartlet puts her hand over her heart. "Josh must be having a conniption fit." She smiles at Chase. "Donna has a history of attracting handsome foreigners."

Nonplussed, Chase manages to murmur something about needing to check with the lab. He has the sense to snag Cameron and take her with him.

It's really, really quiet in here without them.

"I know a couple of really good orthopedists who might be able to help-"

I cut her off. It feels good. "I had an infarction in my thigh."

She has the good grace to turn a little pale. "I didn't know," she says softly. "I'm very sorry. Please, don't think you need to keep standing up." We both take seats, looking at each other warily.

"So, what have you been up to all this time?" I ask. She's better at the polite sarcasm stuff than I am. She's also too smart to respond.

"I want to check on Josh and Donna. Also, from being around them for so many years, I have some insights that you might find useful."

"That they're the poster children for co-dependency? I figured that one out already. Want to enlighten me further?"

She crosses her legs and smiles at me. "You always were arrogant and blunt. The new stuff, this extreme bitterness, adds just the right edge. I like it."

"Thanks. Make sure you let Cuddy know on your way out."

"Make no mistake," Dr. Bartlet declares, "I think you're a first-rate doctor, even if you are a total jackass. That said, Donna and Josh are very dear to Jed and me, and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather see working on their cases."

"Case," I correct. "Josh has been discharged, he's fine."

Smiling, she says, "Thank God. What's the latest on Donna?"

"She's going to be fine, too. I think the whole group is down in her room. I'll go spread some good cheer if you think the Mafia guys out there will let me out with my weapon, here." I brandish the cane.

"I really am sorry."

"Sorry it happened?" I ask as I rise slowly. "Or sorry you didn't do it yourself?"

"Those guys in the hall have guns, you know." Sighing, she moves toward me so we can walk side by side. "As much as I may have hated your guts, I was never crazy enough to do you any actual harm."

"Do your constituents ever offer to make you voodoo dolls?" I indicate the small of my back. "Sometimes, I get a stabbing pain, right there."

"Damn, you sussed it out."

"I'm a diagnostician. And a jackass." But I'm a jackass with some class, so I hold the door for her as the Feds form a phalanx around us.

...

Chase and Foreman are on either side of Donna, working despite Josh's hovering presence. They snap to attention when I come in with Dr. Bartlet, and even Donna tries to get up.

"Not a chance," Dr. Bartlet says firmly, crossing the room to give Donna a kiss on the forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"I can't believe you came all this way."

A lot of people have come a long way to be with this woman. Josh went to Germany, he's the winner, but for Abigail Bartlet and her entourage to make the trip to Princeton - she must be more than just an ex-staffer's ex-secretary.

"Jed wanted to come, but he's tied up with something stupid like running the country." Dr. Bartlet smooths back Donna's hair, then looks over at Chase and Foreman. "If I had men like this in my room, I wouldn't want to get better."

Josh all but has steam coming out of his ears.

"I'm Eric Foreman." The two doctors shake hands. "It's very nice to meet you."

"Likewise. Now, Joshua, if you'd like to quit sulking in the corner..."

He goes to her with all the enthusiasm a child approaching a cheek-pinching maiden aunt. She grins at him. It's catching, and he grins back, then opens his arms to give her a long, warm hug. "I'm going to take you for coffee," she declares. "Decaf, so you don't ping-pong off the walls. Donna, we'll be back in a few minutes."

"Thank you," she says demurely, watching until Josh is out of sight. "He looks good."

"You don't yet, but you will." I settle myself in the chair Josh has vacated. "Tell me if I have this right. There was a band there, and it was loud. You looked out into the crowd and saw Josh standing with his hand over his heart. He seemed to be in pain."

"He responds badly to music, sometimes. It's from, you know, Rosslyn."

"And that triggered your attack," Chase says, getting the clue.

She sighs. "That's right."

"It's obvious that the two of you shouldn't be allowed to work in the same zip code," I tell her firmly.

"Usually we don't. But Russell's about to fold like a cheap card table - please, don't quote me on that - and Josh wants me to work for Santos. He hasn't said so in, you know, actual words, more like stalking me after I asked for a job in the first place and he turned me down but regretted it."

Foreman looks bemused. "Did you always feed off each other like this?"

"It was actually worse at the White House," Donna says. "It was like being part of the same organism. He ate a doughnut, I gained a pound."

"Which is a roundabout way of saying that he took a bullet and you felt the pain." I watch as as Donna ducks her head, her shoulders slumping. "I don't believe in 'roundabout,' Donna. I believe in serious. Do you think that what's happening to you is serious? Because I do."

"If I have...if I have..."

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's not cancer, Donna, you're allowed to speak its name." Chase is trying to be flippant.

She smiles a little. It brightens the room. I hate that it does. "Josh said, once, that it doesn't sound like something they let you have when you work for the President."

"You work for the President?" Foreman asks.

"I hope I do."

"Then worry about it if he gets elected. Meanwhile, just steer clear of anything stressful. Like Josh."

We're still laughing when Josh returns with Dr. Bartlet, followed by Cameron. Josh looks utterly confused. "She's got PTSD and you're laughing?"

"We're laughing at you," Donna giggles.

"Actually, we're laughing because Donna doesn't have PTSD, at least not enough for it to be the primary cause of her problems. Anyone have a guess what it could be?"

Dr. Bartlet has taken the folder out of Cameron's hand and is squinting at it, nodding. Then she raises her hand.

"The doctor from Johns Hopkins says that Donna has..."

"...three times the normal amount of adrenaline in her system. It's Stress Cardiomyopathy."

While Dr. Bartlet looks relieved, I can't say the same for Josh and Donna. The prefix "cardio" seems to turn them into terrified statues, unable to speak, white as marble.

"It's also called 'Broken Heart Syndrome,'" Cameron adds. "We can treat the symptoms and, with some follow-up therapy, you should come through just fine. We're going to refer you to someone in D.C. who's an expert in pain management." She can't resist a glance at me, a glance that Dr. Bartlet follows. "And, uh...is there a psychologist or psychiatrist you know, someone you can talk to?"

I clear my throat. "Not the same guy Josh saw - no one could survive both sides of this story."

"I feel very put upon," Josh grumbles. His expression goes soft - some might say gooey - when he turns his attention back to Donna. "You can have one of the Stanleys, if you want."

This is what starts the waterworks. Not her own pain, not watching Josh collapse, not reliving a bomb in Gaza. Josh offering one of his matching shrinks, that's what makes her throw her arms around his neck and sob that it's the nicest thing he's ever done for her.

I'm starting to see the appeal in Donna, after all.

...

It's just Cameron, Dr. Bartlet, and me in the office. That is, if you don't count the suits outside. Some of those guys look like they could snap Foreman in half with one hand. That's not really relevant, but it's one of those notions that gets stuck in your head and won't go away.

Dr. Bartlet exchanges some pleasantries with Cameron, something about their mutual admiration for an artist I've never heard of. I give Cameron a pointed stare, then I nod in the direction of the door. As in, the exit from this room.

She smirks at me, but her smile is all graciousness and politeness when she turns back to Dr. Bartlet. "Excuse me, ma'am. It was very nice to meet you." Cameron takes one last glance at the First Lady, then walks out with unusually good posture.

"She's lovely," Dr. Bartlet says, settling into a chair. "What's her specialty?"

"Infectious diseases."

"Really? Any sub-specialties? Like putting up with self-absorbed bastards, or getting along with patients so her boss doesn't have to?"

Too close. "She answers my mail, if that's what you're asking."

"It's not, and you know it's not, but that's okay." She pours herself a cup of coffee, sips it, makes a face, and puts the cup down. "I'd say you could cut this coffee with a knife, but the fact is that you probably couldn't."

"Chase made the coffee today. Aussies like their coffee to bounce."

"This could take over a medium-sized continent." She pauses. "How did they catch the infarction?"

"They didn't. They shot me up with painkillers and basically ignored everything I told them."

She winces. "God. That's horrible."

"By the third day, I had it figured out." Out of the corner of my eye I can see her reaction. Yeah, she's a doctor, she'd know what kind of pain was involved. I rattle the bottle of Vicodin in my pocket. "Now, with the help of a few narcotics and my trusty cane, you'd never know I had a problem."

"Don't bullshit me," she snaps. "How much of that stuff do you down in a day?"

"Enough to keep me vertical."

"And enough for you to keep the world at arms' length. For you to keep Dr. Cameron at arms' length, perhaps? Maybe with a brutal denial of your attraction, or a particularly incisive character study of her that makes her run away in terror."

"I think my personality would do that all by itself." Nonetheless, the sour words I said to her on our one real date are still at the front of my memory. "Not to mention the phenomenal lovemaking skills I possess, between a useless leg and a dozen vicodin a day. I'm exactly what any beautiful twentysomething woman would want, don't you think?"

Her mocking applause is loud and sharp. "Oh, bravo. You've got your little speech so nicely worked out. Pity it's all crap." She stands up and stalks over to my desk, hands on her hips, staring ruthlessly at me. "Whatever happened to the doctor who marched into my husband's hospital room, said, 'Three specialists in the room and no one can figure out the poor bastard has MS,' and walked out?"

I cock my head. "I called him a bastard?"

"And you didn't even look him in the eye."

"Well," I say in my own defense, "he was just a governor then. If he'd already been the President, I'd have said, 'the poor bastard, sir.' All I knew was that Ray Barber at the Mayo clinic called me for a consult that no one should ever have needed. New Hampshire - well, I wasn't completely sure where it was on the map, much less who was running it."

"You never told anyone, did you?"

No. Certainly not Stacy, who adored Jed Bartlet as she'd never adored another candidate. Certainly more than she adored me, which is another story altogether.

"Doctor-patient confidentiality. I'm a stickler for that stuff. I diagnosed him, then I walked away. Few years later, I voted for him. And again four years after that."

Dr. Bartlet's appraising stare doesn't soften one bit. "He lied," she says simply. "You knew he was lying, and you voted for him anyway."

"I may be a self-absorbed bastard, but I'm no idiot. I would never vote for a candidate who thinks he's always telling the truth."

Donna walks by, dressed in street clothes and leaning a little on Josh's arm. She gives me a little wave and a brilliant smile. Josh pauses, indicating that I should tell Dr. Bartlet that they're outside. I point at

the glass door, and Dr. Bartlet heads toward her friends, these two impossibly screwed-up people who somehow have their lives together better than the rest of us.

She pauses with her hand on the door handle, and faces me again. "You voted for my husband because he was lying?"

"Good a reason as any," I say nonchalantly. "Besides, a little gimpiness hardly keeps us from doing a good job, does it?"

"I'll pass that along," is her parting shot. Two Suits open the door for her and she takes her place alongside Donna, supporting her elbow and talking animatedly about something that makes Josh throw back his head and laugh.

A little gimpiness doesn't keep me from doing a good job at all, I think as I open the vicodin bottle.

END


End file.
